1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a portable, retractable animal leash assembly, wherein said leash line is arranged on a wind-up spool mounted to rotate in a housing carried in the hand. The assembly includes a brake having brake activation means operable by the carrying hand to stop the portion of said leash line wound off the spool located outside the housing at a desired lenght and a brake lock mechanism being associated with the leash in the region of the brake to lock the leash in the position momentarily determined by the brake. The brake lock mechanism includes operating means separated from said brake activation means.
2. Prior Art
In leash assemblies of similar construction known in the art the brake lock mechanism sits directly in or by a brake activation device. This arrangement is very user friendly particularly with regard to its handling. However, due to the combination of break and brake lock in one switch, erroneous switching cannot be avoided with certainty. This is particularly true when the animals on the leash, in general dogs, react unexpectedly and suddenly to influences in their surroundings so that the user of the leash, often for this reason alone, loses track of what is happening and as a result is unable to operate the lead with the required safety.
In order to achieve a greater degree of safety in use, leash assemblies have become known in which the brake activation mechanism is arranged separately on the housing from the operating means for the brake lock mechanism. To this end, the brake lock mechanism is formed as a slidable pin whose ends project out of the housing, whereby one pin end functions as an operating means to lock the brake and extends from one side of the housing while the other pin end is arranged to extend from the other side of the housing to release the brake. The pin further comprises means which achieve the brake lock function by positively locking the activated brake. A disadvantage of such leash assemblies is that the brake lock function can only be attained by acting on the corresponding pin end of the lock mechanism either solely with the left hand or solely with the right hand, depending on the form of the leash assembly or its housing. The same is true for releasing the brake lock function. It is thus conceivable that in practice the user of such a leash assembly holds the same with the left hand, although the operating means for achieving the brake lock function are arranged in such a way that they can only safely and rapidly be accessed by the holding hand when the leash assembly is held in the right hand. Of course, the reverse situation is also possible. In practice, however, it is not always feasible to hold or operate the leash assembly only with the hand for which it is specified, so that in an emergency it has possibly first to be transferred to the other hand, thus unnecessarily losing time.